Without saying a word, she lifted the half-smoked joint from between Julie’s fingers and took a long drag, raising her chin and exposing her neck. Even smoking she looked sexual. Julie wondered how a woman could look vulnerable and fearless at the same time. She realized that more than anything this was a quality she wanted to engender in herself.

“You aren’t surprised to see me.”

Sydny handed back the joint. When she spoke it was with that peculiar sound people made when they were holding smoke deep in their lungs. “Why should I be? Your story is incomplete.” With a hiss like escaping steam, the sweet smoke broke from between her half-open lips, enveloping them both. “And because I still have things to learn from you.”

Julie was stunned. “You have things to learn from me?”

Sydny stood with one hip cocked. To Julie she looked like a superhero.

“Sure.” Sydney wrapped a coil of Julie’s hair around her forefinger. “The moment we stop learning,” she said, “we die.” She smiled, almost dreamily as she watched Julie finish off the joint. “Had to screw up your courage, didn’t you. What were you afraid of, that I’d reject you?”

“No,” Julie said softly. “I was afraid of what’s happening right now.”

“Why?”

“Because all my life I’ve wanted things, desperately, and when I got them I discovered they were meaningless.”

“And you kept going on.”

“Yes.”

“To the next thing that disappointed you.”

“Yes.”

Cars passed in the street, their headlights picking out details in the storefronts that The Doll House’s livid neon couldn’t touch. A dog skittered into the street, ran barking after the vanished taillights. It lost interest quickly, returning to the shadowed sidewalk, where it sat sadly observing the nighttime world passing it by.

Sydny dropped her hand. “You know, when I see you now, you remind me of that dog—a lost little thing, looking for someone to play with, looking for something new, looking for someone to take you to that new place that doesn’t turn to shit.”

Julie thought she should be angry, but there was nothing cutting in Sydny’s tone. On the contrary, it was warm, intimate even. And, in any case, she’s right, Julie thought. I am looking for that new thing, something that will change me forever.

She saw Sydny looking at her with a particular intensity that made her ears burn and the skin of her throat turn pink. “What?” she whispered.

“Let’s go back to my place.”

A fizzy sensation took up residence in Julie’s chest, reminding her of the moment she had stepped aboard her first roller coaster. Ecstasy and terror combined. “Aren’t you due another turn?”

“Gregory isn’t here. It’s a slow night.” Sydny’s smile was like a cat stretching. “Besides, I have something better in mind than climbing a pole.”

Chapter 24

24